


Lightning Risked It All

by destronomics



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:09:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destronomics/pseuds/destronomics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She grumbles into his chest something about "that was a once-in-a-lifetime astral phenomena," like it excuses anything and she feels warmth along her scalp because he is giggling helplessly into her hair. (43. Winona, awe, Where No Woman Has Drabbled Before)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning Risked It All

_43\. Winona, awe._

They aren't even dating yet, much less getting any farther than talking out of the sides of their mouths while hunched over work. She has the science station and he the con, and they only had to coordinate with each other to get the readings needed, nothing else.

So yes, it's a little strange how easy it is to entangle commands and confirmations with idle questions about childhood and family pets and preferences for microbrews. Along with the coordinates for an adjusted heading along the edges of a nebula, she finds that George Kirk prefers cats to dogs, 21st century classic California rock to anything with a strings section, and Hefeweizen to just about anything else.

She completely misses at the time -- brain processing energy outputs and sensor readings -- the implication behind the statement that follows this particular revelation: "Well, okay, maybe I just prefer blondes, mark three on your left, you catch that? Jesus, isn't that something."

Space sparks and flutters and comes suddenly alive with a static burst of the full spectrum of light and information. She says "roger" instead and completely misses the way he keeps looking at her, after confirmation, his mouth quirked in consideration.

She does come to recognize it a little later though, even starts to look for it or get it going or abuse it mercilessly. But just then the sky in front of them is unfolding like petals on a flower, sending her board into a disarray of beeps and boops and buzzing lights that makes her dig deeper into her station and her heart beat two-time with wonder.

**

_He_ hadn't forgotten though: the red and blue of the proximity sensors lighting her face, turning the bend of her mouth -- because she was smiling, couldn't help it; this is why she was here, what she was meant to do -- predatory.

_His_ words, mumbled into her hair very, very much later, while she's trying to catch her breath against the warm, sweat-filmed skin of his neck.

"It was kind of hot."

She grumbles into his chest something about "that was a once-in-a-lifetime astral phenomena," like it excuses anything and she feels warmth along her scalp because he is giggling helplessly into her hair.

So yeah, she felt it safe, then, to count herself lucky.

**

It still takes a few months for the realization that George Kirk is kind of a handsome devil to dig itself through layers of PADDs and sensor records and grant applications and the sheer scope of the work she loved.

First she realizes: they work pretty well together. And then she realizes: he always seems to be in the mess around the same time her stomach cares to remind her she is mortal and food is pretty handy for staying conscious long enough to get her reports filed. Mostly she settles on: his ass.

She asks him out a little later after this realization and he grins and says, "Which means _what_, exactly?"

"Dinner, I think. Usually. According to Ancient Earth custom."

"And just _what_ have we been doing all this time?"

He has an excellent point and Winona doesn't mind conceding said point and tells him so. He grins like he has won an argument she wasn't aware of them having ("It was just a clarification of terms." "Uh huh." "I totally knew." "Sure.") and they agree to dinner in the mess together again the next day, with the only distinct differences being:

1) It's a promise, not a _happy accident, but not really, jeez you are **dense**, Lieutenant._

2) He holds the right to pull her chair out for her, and if the result is blinding embarrassment in front of officers and crewmen alike, well.

So it's a surprise that it lasts, an even bigger one that she doesn't get bored or he doesn't seem to feel like he has to compete with her PADDs or her lab or her work. She doesn't tell him "thank you" in so many words, but she doesn't try too hard to find them either. Why try and quantify it? She's happy leaving it the unknown in their relationship, he the control, her the variable, if it means this can keep working.

And it does: it works, it works, it works until five years later, and the _Kelvin_ and the freak electrical storm on the edges of Federation space and her curiosity getting the better of all of them, all at once.

**

"It's the study of a lifetime. This area only just now started showing signs of--" She stops herself. She's rambling. Goes quiet, and then: "You don't have to. I mean--"

"Win."

"You've got your career too, I know, I shouldn't have even asked. I completely understand if--" She doesn't look at him, can't. She's supremely, stupidly grateful in that moment for being shorter, having that ironclad excuse to keep her eyes on his chest and away from the very real risk of disappointment she has already calculated the odds of being written on his face in levels that even her own emotionally stunted brain can register.

"_Win._" He says it again, and tucks a finger under her chin so her gaze is straight on him. He looks like the next thing he will say he won't be able to take back, like he'll really mean it and therefore it will be true. Actual reality.

Her stomach turns to a mess of sick and she doesn't know what she hates more: that she is going to care, or that she has let herself get to the point where she is even capable of it.

"Yes."

**

So it lasts. It lasts until it can't, until five years later, and the _Kelvin_ and the electrical storm on the edges of Federation space and her curiosity getting the better of all of them, all at once and all her fault. He wouldn't be there if he didn't care; wouldn't be there if she hadn't asked, wouldn't be there if--

If she could believe otherwise, she would. But the data is unmistakable and undeniable and Winona is a scientist first -- before a wife or widow or mother or a whole host of other things she can't quite believe herself to be just then -- so that is what she chooses to remember (her fault), what she doesn't let herself forget (her fault), what she'll never let herself lose sight of: _her fault, her fault, her fault._

She remembers space: uncurling out of itself like petals on a flower, electricity arcing in vacuum and her heart beating two-time with wonder, that wide, predatory grin splitting her face until it hurt.


End file.
